"You show spirit and bravery, and you come of noble stock. You will make a very valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom."

"Iíll join you when hell freezes over," said Neville. "Dumbledoreís Army!" he shouted, and there was an answering cheer from the crowd, whom Voldemortís Silencing Charms seemed unable to hold.

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The Final Competition

Our first round we faced off against Team 18. Unfortunately, during the beginning exploration, our robots collided and got locked together. The robots werenít able to detach from each other, so the match ended uneventfully in a loss for us, because we had not explored as many territories as our opponents when we crashed.

Second round we were paired against Team 21. The exciting match ended with a tie, so we had to rematch after a short break. Our rematch went extremely well, and resulted in us winning the match and reaching a new personal best score!

Our third round match was against Team 17. We lost the match after a malfunction with our wheels. Because of a gear misalignment, Neville was slow in his turns and wasnít able to approach the ball dispenser enough to pull the lever. This resulted in a slow progression through the game field and a loss of the match.

Challenges

Some of the things we found challenging and wish we could have improved on include:

A more sturdy and robust robot - most of the time when Neville collided with another robot, he would end up tilted backwards and would have no way of righting himself

Better time outs - we had trouble incorporating effective time outs into our code

Faster! - compared to most of the other robots, Neville was on the slow side